Josue Malard

Josue Jean Francois Malard (1762-1835) was a general of France in the Napoleonic Wars. Born in Spain's city of Pamplona (part of the Navarra region) in 1762, he was called up for service in the French Army in 1809 and remained loyal to France during the remainder of the Napoleonic wars.

Biography
Josue Malard was born in Pamplona, Navarra, in northern Spain in 1762. Malard was the son of a Navarrese father and a Basque mother, Gabriel Malard and Antonieta Pratt. He was originally a bookseller, but in 1779 he joined the Spanish Army and fought in the American Revolutionary War in the Great Siege of Gibraltar, which lasted for most of the war (1779-1782).

After the war, Malard returned to Pamplona, and was a bookseller until the French invasion of 1808. A year later, Malard was recruited as a soldier in the Fusiliers of Line, becoming colonel of a local regiment. He was one of the commanders whose regiments withdrew into France in 1814, and he was sent to defend northern France as southern France fell. During the defense of France he fought the Swedes at the Battle of Denain on 10 February 1814, and after the downfall of Napoleon, he lived in Toulouse in Pays d'Oc, as e could not return to Spain as a former soldier of France.